About the author -- Introduction -- 1 Anatomy of a crisis -- The roots of disaster -- Speculative folly -- The descent into criminality -- The political nexus -- Continuing denial -- The post-millennium bubble - a terminal orgy? -- A humanitarian crisis -- 2 The official response: a study in delusion -- The first priority: bailing out the banks -- Reflation of the bubble: a final throw of the dice -- Market manipulation: the imperfectly hidden hand -- The fraud of official statistics -- Still cooking the books -- Going for broke -- Silence of the dissidents -- 3 Facing up to systemic failure -- Poor prospects for long-term recovery -- Resistance to devaluation of capital and labour -- The need to abandon the growth obsession -- Excess population growth - the undeclared menace -- 4 The price of profit-driven growth -- The privatisation catastrophe -- Forcing enterprises to service surplus capital -- The private pensions vampire -- Wasteful and costly over-investment -- Profit-distorted priorities -- Encouragement to speculation through liberalisation of markets -- The 'war' on drugs: a profit-driven perversion of public policy -- A pattern of resource misallocation -- 5 A new model: ending the tyranny of production -- Origins of the expansionist bias -- The work fetish -- The new scarcity -- A more rational ideology -- 6 Evolving a more rational economic system -- Basic strategic orientation -- A more rational globalisation -- Restoring monetary order -- The role of enterprise -- Income distribution and employment -- Basic income - an idea whose time has come -- An end to the anarchy of the global 'free' market -- Criteria for public choice -- 7 Ideology for the twenty-first century: cooperation, creativeness, equality -- In place of the work ethic -- Changing perceptions of the corporate sector -- Marginalising the profit motive.

Measuring welfare -- 8 Deepening democracy -- Ending the power of money over the political process -- Limiting media distortions -- Restoring the rule of law -- Enhancing participation and accountability -- The measure of democracy -- Governance in the developing world -- 9 Capitulation or catastrophe? -- A glimmer of hope? -- An emergency response -- A compulsive hope -- Index.